


And a Hard Place

by Asidian



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Captivity, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:08:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4535610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asidian/pseuds/Asidian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Mr. Nelson," says the cigar smoker. "I am going to make this very simple for you." There's a rustle of fabric as cigar guy squats to be closer to level with them. "We're not here for you. You're only the witness in all this."</p><p>"Witness to what?" Foggy asks – playing along, Matt thinks.</p><p>"To the greatest achievement organized crime in this city has seen since Mickey Spillane walked the streets of Hell's Kitchen." There's a pause; cigar guy's breathing hitches, just slightly, as though he can't wait to give the reveal.</p><p>Into the silence, Matt rasps, "Spillane ended up having to run to Queens with his tail between his legs."</p><p>The smoker makes an irritated sound, a click of his tongue. "Maybe he wouldn't have," the man snaps, "if he'd pulled off killing a devil."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on the kink meme: some Very Bad People take Matt and Foggy, torture the hell out of Matt, and let Foggy patch him up between sessions.

It's half past who-the-hell-knows when Foggy wakes, and his very first thought is that he's never going to drink again.

His head feels like someone tried to split it in two, and his throat is bone dry, and his mouth tastes like something crawled into the tequila last night and died. Possibly it also started to rot at some point, and Foggy didn't notice – because, Jesus, the taste is all over his tongue, coating it like a scum of oil on water.

"I need an intervention," he croaks miserably, and gropes half-heartedly in pitch darkness for the bedside table. He has a vague idea that there might be a cup of water on it, thoughtfully left by Matt or Karen or someone with a bit of foresight, but his fingers come up empty.

No water. No table. Come to think of it, no bed.

His questing fingers find what feels like tile, and he thinks: did I pass out in the bathroom? When nausea sweeps over him, sudden and crippling, the thought that follows is: good place to be, bathroom.

Foggy lunges toward where he thinks the toilet ought to be – finds nothing but more tile – suffers a wave of disorientation so strong it nears vertigo.

Then he's puking onto the floor, on all fours, head hanging between braced arms.

He's almost done when some spatters onto his wrist, warm and chunky, and that sets him off on a whole new wave, heaving until he's sure his whole stomach's spread out on the ground beneath him.

When Foggy's finished, he spits, then wipes at his lips with the back of his hand. He needs to rinse his mouth out. He needs to brush his teeth and find some paper towels to clean up the mess.

But before any of that, he needs to turn on the damn light. Even with the curtains closed, his bathroom's not usually this dark. The streetlight across the way must be burned out again.

Standing's a pretty impressive feat, Foggy thinks. There have been sailors in honest-to-god lightning storms that've had firmer ground beneath them – but he rallies like some grizzled old dude with a hook hand and a parrot. He finds his sea legs, and he stands there panting until the room stops swaying.

"Teetotaling," Foggy whispers, fervently. "That's the way to go."

But first up, before he embarks on his new life of virtue: the light.

Foggy puts his hand out for the wall and finds… nothing. More air. And that's the moment when he feels the first real prickle of fear.

Because his bathroom is _tiny_ – two steps across, if you're generous and take small steps. There shouldn't be anywhere he can't reach the wall from, but he's stumbling forward, blind – one step, and then another, and then another, and there's nothing where there's supposed to be a towel rack.

"Oh," he says, quietly. "Oh, shit."

And then, before his brain-to-mouth filter can kick in, before he can parse can-nots and should-nots, before he dives feet-first into worst-case scenarios and organized crime and his idiot best friend who makes the worst life choices Foggy has ever seen _anyone_ make, Foggy says, "Matt?"

But it's not Matt's voice that answers.

It's a man's voice, deep and gravelly, somewhere behind Foggy in the dark.

"Mr. Murdock," that voice tells him, "is currently indisposed."

It's the kind of feeling Foggy imagines you'd get if someone shoved you off the docks with your feet in cement – icy and breathless. The thought that he's going to die pounds through his head like his kid sister with a toy drum on Christmas morning.

"Who's there?" Foggy demands, and he means for it to come out as a threat, but his voice is strangled and scratchy from puking. "Don't come any closer."

"No one is here, Mr. Nelson," the voice informs him, neutral. "You're being monitored remotely."

Foggy feels unease scramble up his spine like a spider. He imagines video equipment there in the dark, then instantly wonders how much any video equipment could possibly pick up right now, given that he couldn't see the floor when it'd been a foot in front of him.

For a second, Foggy flounders, fear hobbling his feet. Then he starts forward again, arms out in front like a cheesy version of Frankenstein's monster, common sense cringing in anticipation. If he keeps this up, some rational part of his mind whispers, Matt's not going to hold the record for terrible life choices very long.

"Yeah?" Foggy asks. "From where?"

He doesn't expect an answer. Really he doesn't. Life's not full of cartoon villains, who divulge their plans to anyone who feels like asking.

But the voice replies anyway: "Elsewhere in the building."

It's like a bad horror movie. Snippets of half a dozen of them dance through his mind: crazy hillbillies, and chainsaws, and meat hooks. Foggy stops walking – tries to stop thinking.

"So you," he stammers. "So you want to – what? Kidnap a level one defense attorney?" Foggy's heart is loud in his chest; his throat is drier than he can remember it ever being. "You could've made an appointment at the office. We've got coffee and everything."

And the voice actually laughs. The chuckle's low, and it makes all the hair on Foggy's arms stand up on end, like it's trying to jump free of a sinking ship.

"Oh, no," the voice says. "It's not your legal skills we're interested in."

Foggy catches a sound, then. It's in the background, muffled as though from bad audio.

"Ah," says the man. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Nelson." Then there's a hiss of static, brief and distinct, and silence.

The dark is absolute.

Foggy' ears go into overdrive, straining for a scrap of – well, anything, really. He'll take anything at this point.

But mostly, what he wants is to prove himself wrong. He wants something to drown out that last sound, there at the end, the one that's still ringing in his brain. There are warning bells attached to that sound, and some kind of siren shriek of wordless alarm. DANGER, that sound declares, and CAUTION, and ROAD ENDS AHEAD, and a thousand other advisory fragments in construction site yellow.

Foggy knows those particular thoughts well.

They're the kind of thoughts he gets at night, sitting up in his apartment, watching grainy news footage of Hell's Kitchen's newest up-and-coming awful thing – hoping and not hoping to catch a glimpse of some blind asshole lawyer playing dress-up.

They're his something's-wrong-with-Matt thoughts, and if he thinks too hard about why he needs to have a whole classification for those, Foggy's going to hate his life. So he doesn't.

But those thoughts? Those thoughts are ringing off the hook right now.

Because the sound over the audio connection, barely heard, was a sound Foggy _knows_. The memory's buried deep in reckless nights at Columbia, in shots at Josie's, in Matt Murdock sprawled on Foggy's couch, bleary-eyed and hung over.

It's the sound of Foggy's name, slurred and tentative, in a voice he knows as well as his own.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to the folks who read and commented!
> 
> The edits from the version that appeared on the kink meme start to get pretty heavy at this point, and will continue to do so, moving forward.

In the hours before dawn, Foggy learns three very important things.

The first is that he's in someone's kitchen.

The light switch doesn't work when he finally finds it, so he gropes around in the dark, but he can tell by feel. It's about three times the size of the kitchen in his own cramped apartment, features a blinking red light up toward the ceiling – a security camera, maybe – and there are empty cabinets and drawers for miles. Foggy's mom would've liked a kitchen like this. She complains about storage every time he comes home to visit.

The second thing is that there's no way out.

The door's a no go – locked, the chill metal of the handle refusing to turn under his palm. The wall farthest from the cabinets is lined with windows, but someone's boarded them up. The wood's not old or decrepit or splintery; it's solid and new, like someone planned for this. Foggy pries at the boards, tries to get his fingers in under them – but even when he leans back, puts his whole weight into it, he can't get them free.

The third thing is that his mental picture of the audio system – some elaborate set-up with wires and high-tech equipment – couldn't possibly be further from the truth.

It's a baby monitor on a folding metal chair. Foggy finds it when he bangs his shin and the monitor falls, crash and skid, loud on the tile. He picks it up to discover hard lines of plastic, the tiny rows of holes for the speakers, what feels like a soft rubber antenna at the top.

He turns the thing over in his hands, thinking.

The vague recollection of a crime show drifts in his head: detectives recovering bodies chopped into pieces and buried in plastic bags, the grizzled lead of the investigation saying that the best thing you can do in the case of a kidnapping is to humanize yourself. Make them see you as a person, not just a job.

Foggy thinks he can handle that. He can do likable – some guy you wouldn't mind going out for a drink with, if only you hadn't drugged him and carted him off.

So he says, "Hey, look," into the monitor like it's a walkie-talkie. "Let's talk about this." He pauses a moment, then adds: "What do you want, even?"

The voice that comes back is the same man as before: low and gravelly, a bit breathy now. "Mr. Nelson," the man tells him. "If you don't put down my equipment — aah!"

It's a shout of surprise, Foggy thinks – but also pain. Definitely pain. The monitor picks up impact and then static when, presumably, the other half of the connection crashes to the floor.

Then nothing.

Get him, Matt, Foggy thinks – suddenly, violently hopeful. Wipe the goddamn floor with him.

He strains his ears, trying to catch a hint of – anything. If the guy was telling the truth about being in the same building, they might get loud enough about it for him to catch a hint of what's going on.

And there it is, faint but audible: another impact, and then another, like someone hanging up pictures on the other end of the house. _Whud_ , _whud_ , like a hammer on drywall. Then what sounds like it might be breaking glass.

Then nothing.

Foggy listens, and he clutches at the baby monitor so tight he's sure the plastic seams are going to leave imprints in his palms. "Come on," he whispers, "Come _on_."

He's not sure how long he stands there, in the dark, heart slamming in his chest, hope sticking in his throat like an over-inflated balloon. But eventually, the baby monitor crackles back to life.

"As I was saying, Mr. Nelson," says the man's voice, winded. "Kindly put down my equipment."

"What the hell was that?" Foggy asks, even though he's got a pretty good idea.

"An unfortunate circumstance," the man's voice tells him pleasantly, "prompted by someone who doesn't know how to do as he's _told_."

The words coil in Foggy's stomach like a poisonous snake. He puts the monitor down, textbook cautious, and he holds both hands up, and he wishes there actually  _was_ a textbook for this kind of thing. It could've been a class at Columbia – how not to piss off nutjobs. He feels like Matt could've really used a class like that.

"There," Foggy says. "All right? No circumstance." He licks at his lips and feels like he might throw up again. His thoughts are trying to race in directions he doesn't want them to go – Matt lying on the floor, bleeding out; Matt with his neck snapped; Matt with a bullet between his eyes. He pounces on the last one as something he can disprove – tells his own brain, triumphantly, that he'd have heard the shot if someone fired a gun. "Now what _was_ that? Where's Matt?"

But no reply comes.

"Hello?" says Foggy, into the dark room.

"Mr. Nelson," says the voice, when it reappears, sounding impatient now. "We have other matters to attend. Entertain yourself some other way."

The dread in Foggy's stomach grows heavier, the snake-coils of it rolling and shifting, but his mouth doesn't hesitate. "Not till you tell me what you did with Matt."

The voice takes a breath in and lets it out slowly, as though handling an unruly child. "He's alive," the man tells him, "which is more than we'll be able to say for you, if you keep asking questions."

After that, there's silence: no voice, no sounds of struggle, no nothing. The baby monitor doesn't crackle back to life.

Foggy thinks about picking it up again. He thinks about ignoring the threat and fishing for information – annoying them so much they send someone in to make him shut up. He could use the folding chair, clock them over the head and initiate a daring escape.

But the guy on the monitor said "we," so that means he'd be clocking at least two over the head – probably armed. And whoever they were, they took Matt down, which means it's probably a lot less like two and a lot more like five or six.

And then what? Charge into the living room with non-existent guns blazing, like the worst desperado ever seen in a spaghetti western? Take out however many were left with his non-existent fighting skills while Matt's _indisposed_ – tied up, or out cold, or something worse?

No, Foggy tells himself. He's going to play this smart. He's going by the book – how not to piss off nutjobs, Columbia's most popular course. With additional required reading: How Not to Get Yourself and Your Best Friend Shot, and the long-running bestseller, If Your Plan Reads Like the Climax of a Summer Blockbuster, You Probably Need a Better Plan.

Matt's alive, assuming baby monitor guy can be believed. Foggy's alive. That means whoever these assholes are, they probably plan to keep them that way, for now.

There's time to turn this around.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, the branch-off from what I originally posted on the kink meme is pretty massive, starting at this chapter. This entire scene didn't exist, actually, but I felt like it needed some Matt POV before picking up with Foggy again, so I added it in.
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who's read and commented. :)

Consciousness returns with the smells of mold and blood; the ache of the new bruises that litter his body; the _tap_ , _tap_ of someone's footsteps on old wood; and pain that runs through Matt's arms and into his shoulders, demanding all the rest of his attention.

His hands are behind his back, pressed together and bound; they won't move when he tests them, rotating the wrists, but his shoulders ache at even that small motion, and Matt leaves off, breathes slow and even while he struggles to take in the rest of the room.

The chair beneath him is metal, thin and brittle, the cheap folding kind that's all they can afford at the office. Matt's pitched forward in it, bent half over his knees, because whatever's binding his hands – wire, from the smell of rubber and the stiff unyielding shape of it – has them at an ungainly angle, upward and over the chair back. It's the strain that's twisted the muscles in his shoulders to knots.

Matt reaches out further – finds cigar smoke, going stale, caught in a smoker's clothes. Grapefruit juice from someone's breakfast. Five brands of laundry detergent, the lingering musty cat smell of a pet owner, and the sharp, clear burn of vodka. Five heartbeats: three quick with nerves, two slow and unconcerned. One of the latter belongs to the person sprawled out on a plush chair, napping; there's a slide of fabric on overstuffed pleather, the soft whistle of the snores, in and out.

Beyond that, he hears Foggy – in another room, on the other side of the house, pacing. The wavering back-and-forth of his steps was a staple in their dorm during finals, brings back all-nighters and the taste of coffee, bitter-dark. The thrumming of his heart is too fast, but he's not panicking, which probably means he doesn't know how serious this is.

He doesn't know that the men and women crowded into the house with them grabbed Matt Murdock in plain clothes, for a heist Daredevil stopped in costume seven months ago.

Good.

Matt reaches further still – out past the walls of the house, past overgrown crabgrass that rustles in a mild breeze, past a scrabbling at the dirt that he imagines is some small rodent. He reaches too far, far enough that his voice won't carry, past the great empty lot where the house sits to streets where he can hear the whirring pedals of a bike and the rushing spray of someone watering a lawn.

Not Hell's Kitchen, then. Not even the city.

Matt takes a slow breath in, and he lets it out. Just five, he tells himself. One's asleep.

He's had worse odds before.

So Matt stays where he is, head almost on his knees, and he tracks their motions across the room. The copper tang of his own blood is heavy on his tongue, thickest behind the split lip from when he fought back the first time. The taste of the drug that had been slipped into his beer is even heavier, a combination of chemicals that makes him want to gag, coating the inside of his mouth like the layer of smog that wreathes Hell's Kitchen on summer mornings.

But it's worn off, and that's the important thing. The world no longer tips sideways when he shifts the wrong way. He knows now he should have waited until this point the last time; they had left him unbound, and they were overconfident, and if it hadn't been for the drug still in his system, he and Foggy would already be catching a ride back home.

He'll do it right this time, Matt promises himself.

So he listens, and he concentrates, and he takes in information. One has a gun; Matt can smell the oil, hear the nervous way the man's fingertips brush against the grip periodically. He'll have to go first.

It's perhaps fifteen minutes before the gunner comes within reach, _tsk_ s like he's imagined kidnappings a hundred ways and never come up with anything as boring as this.

"Jesus, how hard you hit this guy? I thought we were gonna teach him a lesson, not set him up in a chair for nap time." Matt waits for it – for the soft snort of disdain, for the heavy flesh-on-cotton when he puts a hand on one hip.

He uses his right hand for the gesture – the hand that should be free for the gun.

Matt takes the invitation – uncoils sudden and fluid to slam one foot into the gunman's kneecap and feel it give. He leans forward on the metal seat until his feet are under him, catches his balance, and follows up with roundhouse that takes the gunner across the chin. The gun hits the wood floor, skitters, and thumps against the plaster of the wall.

"Aw, shit," says a woman's voice, and a man says, "Somebody grab the wire."

Someone's coming up behind him, and Matt slips one foot under the lip of the folding chair – heaves, lifts it, sends it flying into the face of the would-be attacker. He hears the crunch of cartilage and the hiss of an indrawn breath when it collides, and he gets halfway around to face the cigar smoker when his shoulders explode into sudden agony.

Someone's yanking on the wire holding his arms, and the upward pressure is unbearable, wrenching up and back until his wrists are even with his shoulder blades. Matt bends forward, trying to ease the strain, and the woman's voice says, "Someone give me a hand here."

Someone must give her a hand. An instant later, Matt's feet are lifting clear off the floor, all his weight on his arms – on his shoulders, wrenched forward as his hands go back and up. They've got the wire running over a ceiling beam, he realizes distantly; they're hauling on the other end.

Matt knows exactly how a shoulder feels when it's nearly out of socket. He dislocated the left one twice in the year he was training with Stick, and there's been time enough since he started running the rooftops at night to learn that particular pain again. He knows if they don't put him down, both are going to go.

"Christ," the woman snorts, "lookit him dance," and Matt becomes aware of the motion of his own feet, frantic, searching for purchase.

He makes a sound, somewhere at the back of his throat; it's a groan, between clenched teeth. "Let," he manages, "let me –"

Let me down, he means to say, but that's the moment when someone finds the wire and yanks it, hard. Both shoulders pop out of joint at the same time; he hears the sickening slide, the tear of his own flesh giving up, and Matt screams, low and hoarse.

The napper in the chair's awake now, a younger woman, voice high and light. "You didn't wake me up?" she's saying. "Come on, I wouldn't start without you guys."

And a bass, gravelly with outrage, says, "You broke my nose, you asshole!"

Matt hears it coming – the scrape of aluminum on floorboards, the way the air whistles through the slats with the speed of it. He tries to jerk back, but he's still dangling, nothing to push off against. The chair hits him full in the face: hot burst of metallic tang thick over his tongue, crunch as his own nose gives.

"Guess," he manages to get out, and spits blood. "Guess we're even."

From somewhere behind him, Foggy's voice comes, distant and tinny, as though through bad speakers. "Matt?" he asks, sounding frantic.

The smoker crosses the room, takes the smell of old cigars with him, and Matt breathes through clenched teeth, trying not to scream again, now that he knows Foggy can hear.

"Indisposed again, Mr. Nelson," says the man's voice, remarkably calm, and Matt twists a little – quests out with one foot, looking for a surface, and finds nothing.

Behind him comes the shift of wire, tucked and pulled, and the minute scrape of fingertips on rubber casing. They're tying him into place – mean to keep him like this for awhile.

Matt says, "Don't –" just as Foggy's voice comes again from the speakers – still scared, but trying harder to hide it now, all false bravado that doesn't quite cover the rawness of his words. "Leave him alone. What the hell did he ever do to you?"

It's the wrong thing to say. Matt knows that, even if Foggy doesn't.

Because Matt _recognizes_ these voices, from a night outside a jewelry store on West 42nd Street. He recalls the ozone-hot stench of lasers from the high-tech security system, the precision whine of a glass cutter, and five too-clever wanna-be big shots crumpled in an alleyway when the cops show up. Matt's not sure how they're out on the streets again already – last he heard, they'd been scheduled to do time – but like an idiot, he didn't follow the appeal. Didn't think they were a threat.

Only now they know who he is, and they have him dangling from a ceiling beam in the suburbs, and one of the men is laughing at Foggy's claim like it's the best joke he's ever heard.

"Mr. Nelson," says the cigar smoker, smooth as still water. "Surely you've heard of your partner's extra-curricular activities?"

In the other room, Foggy's heartbeat ratchets up from alarm to full blown panic, going like a snare drum in Matt's ears.

"I don't," says Foggy's voice, "I don't know what you're talking about."

The woman standing behind Matt steps back and gives a hum of satisfaction. When she lets go of the wire, he remains dangling at the same height, the pain searing through his shoulders overbearing – mind-consuming.

Matt's outright panting now, starting to shake, teeth clenched shut against the impulse to scream.

"Let me _down_ ," he wants to say, but the cigar guy has – has something, some kind of walkie-talkie. He should be able to tell more about it than that, should be able to gauge size and material and how well-made it is, but he can't concentrate over the pain. Stick would be disappointed.

But it's _some_ kind of walkie-talkie, and Matt thinks that if says it now, Foggy will hear.

Cigar guy laughs, a low, rolling chuckle. "He doesn't know what I'm talking about," the man announces, as though on a stage giving a performance to a waiting audience.

Matt makes himself go still, because every time he kicks or twists or struggles, his shoulders feel like someone's slid the blade of a knife into the sockets.

"I don't," says Foggy's voice. Then, more desperately: "Look, it's not too late. I haven't seen anyone's faces. And Matt's _blind_ , man, no jury in the world would buy it if we tried to ID you in court. We can all just walk away. Okay?"

Matt should know it's coming.

He should hear the woman's heartbeat when she steps in, smell the lingering traces of the pleather on her skin. He should be able to identify what she had for breakfast this morning. But his world's narrowed to the stripe of fire along the top of his back. When she wraps her arms around his thighs and yanks _downward_ , it comes as an absolute surprise.

This time, Matt can't keep himself from screaming.

"Oh, Mr. Nelson," says the cigar smoker, almost regretfully. "We are long, long past walking away."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's coming so slowly. Thanks to everyone who's sticking with me and has stopped by to comment. o/
> 
> More significant changes from the meme version, here, and I think I've caught up to what I'd posted. So, everything from here on out should be new.

It's been two days.

Two days with no contact from the world outside besides the crackle of a voice over shitty speakers and Matt, muffled by distance, screaming. Two days with an empty kitchen and cold tile, Foggy's traitor imagination coming up with worse and worse ways for his best friend to be bleeding out in the other room.

To top it all off, the final cherry on the massive three-scoop sundae of awful, the assholes who brought them here came into the kitchen while he was sleeping – crept around while Foggy was passed out in the corner, exhaustion finally overwhelming the freaking-the-fuck-out factor enough to let him check out for a little while.

In their wake, they left a dozen cans of soup and a can opener, along with the sick disappointment that he'd had his chance and missed it. Slept through it, like that recurring dream he used to have, about being late to the first day of seventh grade.

Foggy still hasn't so much as seen them; they haven't even cracked the door open while he's been awake. So when a voice outside says, "I want you up against the wall, by the windows," Foggy sits up and takes notice.

He turns to look at the folding chair – the room's only furniture – and has brief, vivid fantasies about caving in the head of whatever psychopath’s been making Matt scream that way. Then he considers the jagged can lid from the Spaghettios that served as this morning's breakfast, and he weighs his odds.

Get out, his brain is clamoring; get _Matt_. Foggy’s body kicks into autopilot, moving toward the chair.

He's taken all of three steps when the voice from outside the door interrupts. "My colleagues," it assures him, "are watching the video feed in the other room, Mr. Nelson."

Foggy's breath rushes out in a huff. He lifts his face toward the shitty home security camera wedged into one corner of the ceiling, blinking its little red light at him like some tiny eye of Sauron, and presents it with a one-fingered salute.

"Can they see me now?" he asks, flatly, and wonders what happened to the very reasonable instinct not to piss off the people who could potentially kill him. Dead and buried, he figures, around the first five minutes the screaming started in the other room.

Still. He has some self-preservation. He goes over to the window-wall and stands there.

"Now put your hands on your head," instructs the voice outside the door.

Foggy complies, and he says, harder and more afraid than he means to, "You ever plan on telling me what you’re doing to my partner out there?"

"At the moment," says the voice, "nothing. Now kneel, and it will stay that way for a little while."

The words settle in his stomach the way liquid mercury looks: fluid and so cold. This new anxiety feels like an old friend, right at home with the frantic why-haven't-they-said-anything-about-Matt worry that's been clawing him apart.

He's going to have an ulcer, if they make it out of this alive.

Foggy swallows, and he kneels. "Okay," he says. "I'm down."

They must have been checking the video feed – calling to each other down the hall, or something. The words aren't even out of his mouth before the door cracks open.

Foggy's not sure what he's expecting. Maybe a gun and a bullet in his head. Maybe some first-hand experience with whatever it is that’s been making Matt shout himself hoarse.

What he gets instead is a thick stack of towels, tossed onto the floor. After that comes a brown bottle with a white cap.

Then the door cracks open wider, and they toss in Matt.

He makes a noise when he hits the ground – a groan that's barely there, like he just doesn't have the strength left for anything else. And Foggy – Foggy makes a noise, too. It's frantic and strangled, and if this were any other situation, he'd be embarrassed by it, but he thinks he's probably entitled to frantic and strangled right now.

Because Matt's spread out on the ground like – like some classical painting of a martyr, pale and bloody, most of the skin on his torso going an ugly shade of purple-black. His shirt's gone, and his shoes, and his shoulders are swollen and discolored, lumps of flesh that look out of place to even Foggy’s untrained medical eye. Matt curls in on himself the second he hits the ground, tucks his head and brings his knees up, like he’s expecting someone to hit him again.

Foggy's up and moving before he thinks it through – halfway across the room before he even remembers the possibility of a gun. But no one stops him; the door slams shut, and there's a rattle at the other side, like it's being locked.

Foggy's never cared less about anything in his life.

"Matt?" he asks, voice shaky with alarm.

For a second, Foggy's afraid to touch him. From up close, the damage is even worse: bruises the shade of rotting grapes, swelling along one cheekbone, the way the right ankle is bigger than the other, thick and red. Matt's hands are cuffed behind his back, and under the cuffs some sick fucker’s wound wire, tight enough to indent the skin; he’s rubbed raw where it’s wrapped, open sores all the way up his forearms.

But the worst part is Matt's chest, from collar bone to abdomen, old-blood brown with glimpses of crimson poking chasms through it. He's carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey, the cuts thick, straight lines that run parallel all the way down it, wounds still open and oozing.

It steals his breath like Foggy's been punched in the stomach. It scares him more than _anything_ has ever scared him, to think that these lunatics were down the hall the whole time, taking Matt apart piece by piece. To picture the first cut, and then the second – deliberate things, and Matt knowing more were on the way.

He’s gaping now – just standing there, staring. He feels like someone glued his feet to the floor with concrete, and that moving from this spot’s for braver men than he.

God dammit, Nelson, the small part of his brain that isn’t stunned and nauseated yells at him, get _moving_.

And for a miracle, he does – stumbles forward first one step, and then another, and it’s easier after that.

Since the night Foggy met Claire Temple, that nightmare evening spent with his best friend bleeding out on the floor of a trashed apartment, he’s been grateful to her more times than he can count.

He adds another owe-you-one to the tally now, promises that if they survive this he'll take her out drinking or buy her some crown jewels or whatever the hell you do for someone who makes gut-wrenching disasters mildly less disconcerting.

Because even while his hands are shaking, Foggy's moving on autopilot. Even while his stomach's doing backflips like it's going to empty itself all over the floor again, he's going for one of the towels. Some deep-down part of him is taking the first aid lessons she'd insisted on after the most recent past-2-am emergency call, and it's turning them into action.

The towel goes from white to splotchy red in a few spots, colors seeping in like he's tie-dying a t-shirt, but the bleeding's almost stopped now; most of it’s dry already. When he pulls the fabric back, the cuts gape empty and glistening, a line of little mouths.

Apply pressure to stop the bleeding, Claire's voice echoes in his mind, and Foggy thinks, giddily: thanks, Claire, but the bleeding's got this one covered already.

The cuts aren't that deep – _too deep_ , the panicked part of him is insisting – but at least a few look like they’re going to need stitches. He doesn’t want to think about when exactly he started being able to tell whether a cut needs stitches – doesn’t want to think that that’s part of his _skillset_ now – so instead he looks at Matt’s face, still and pale and tense.

"Matt?" Foggy says. "You with me, buddy?"

Matt's lips move, like he's trying to answer.

Foggy gives him time – looks instead at the brown bottle that came with the towels. Hydrogen peroxide, so at least there’s not a nasty infection in Matt’s future. Small favors.

"I didn't catch that," he says.

Matt shifts a little, so his face isn't pressed up against the floor. "S'not as bad as it looks," he slurs.

"Yeah, well. That's not exactly hard at this point." Foggy swallows. "Look," he says. "You're kind of a mess. I'm gonna get you cleaned up some, okay?"

Matt nods, faintly, and his eyes flutter closed like he doesn't have the strength to keep them open anymore.

"Okay," Foggy says, and pointedly doesn't think about what it might take to exhaust a man who runs himself ragged every night of the week, going up against lunatics who want to see him dead in back alleys. Instead, he takes one of the clean towels to the sink, runs the tap to douse it, and then brings it back over.

He dabs at Matt's chest, trying to be gentle about it, trying to clear away some of the crusted brown. It comes off in patches, leaves the skin looking splotchy and the cuts shockingly dark. They look like the kind of special effects Foggy might have gone crazy over at age nine, in some haunted house where everything was safely fake.

He pops the cap on the peroxide, hands shaking. In retrospect, Foggy's half glad they didn't give him anything to manage stitches with, because he knows he'd make a mess of it right now, first aid lessons or no.

 "Time to clean these bad boys out," Foggy says. "Think you can take some peroxide?"

"Walk in the park," Matt mumbles.

But when Foggy pours, Matt hisses and arches as it splashes across the wounds, spreading a whole sea of tiny white bubbles in its wake.

Foggy grimaces, looks away from his best friend's face, and presses a clean towel down to dry the area. When he takes the towel away again, Matt goes limp, panting.

"There," says Foggy. "All done."

Matt gives a little huff of air, and Foggy's got no idea what that's supposed to be. A sigh of relief? An aborted reply? He waits a second for something more substantial, but nothing comes.

So Foggy says, "Okay, step two. Let's take a look at your wrists."

But Matt licks at his lips and shakes his head, a barely-there motion. "Step two," he croaks, "is water." He's tipped his head a little, toward the sink – must've overheard when Foggy ran the tap for the towel – and shit, now that he's paying attention, he can see that Matt's lips are cracked dry, split with deep-set lines.

They've been here two days already. Can people even live two days without water?

They had to have given him _something_ , right?

Foggy trips over his own feet on the way back to the sink, then has a moment, hovering helpless at the tap, when he realizes he has no cups.

He could drag Matt over – bad idea. Cup the water in his hands – worse idea, too many trips, and most of the water on the floor. So that leaves – what? Soaking another towel and having Matt suck on it? About seventeen blocks away from ideal, but it's got merit.

That's when Foggy remembers the empty can that used to hold Spaghettios. He rinses it out, runs his fingers along the inside to work the gunk free, then rinses it again in sympathy for Matt's ridiculously sensitive taste buds.

"Okay, buddy," he says, when it's full and he's back by Matt's side. "Think you can sit up for me?"

Matt makes a considering noise, and he shifts a little but doesn't rise. And really, that tells Foggy everything he needs to know.

He sets the can down on the tile of the floor, and he gets an arm around Matt, gingerly. All that bare skin is clammy, and at the contact Matt stiffens up in a way that telegraphs it hurts like hell.

"Just for a sec," Foggy promises him. "You can go right back down."

Matt's hands are still bound and cuffed, so that leaves Foggy to hold the can while he drains it in three long gulps, the swallows so hard they sound painful.

"More," he says, as soon as it's gone, and Foggy brings him more – helps him drink the second one, too. This time, Foggy's pretty sure the shaky exhale _is_ relief.

"So, full disclosure," Foggy says, setting down the now-empty can. "They can probably hear everything we're saying. But do you have any idea what the hell we're _doing_ here?"

It's fair warning. He's pretty sure Matt can sense the vibrations in the air from the baby monitor, or hear the hum of the batteries or something equally insane, but their kidnappers probably don't know that. Foggy's not sure _what_ they know, at this point, and he's not about to stick his foot in it and give away secrets.

He spares a glance for the video camera on the ceiling, and then he bends in, reluctant, to get a closer look at the mangled mess they've been made of his best friend's wrists. Consequently, he misses the expression that comes with the huff of very dry, very unamused laughter. "Penance?"

"Ha fucking ha," Foggy tells him, staring at the way the black casing of the wire is digging into the skin, sickened at the thought that he's going to have to go digging to get it out. "Seventeen Hail Maries, and next time you're taking confession alone."

"Seriously, though," says Matt, and his voice has gone somber, carefully blank the way it gets when he's trying not to give too much away. "It's, ah. Repayment, I think."

Repayment. Jesus Christ. One little word is all it takes to leave his head reeling like he's been conked in the temple with a crowbar.

 _Repayment_.

Foggy's fingers find the place where flesh meets wire, red and inflamed, and pinches at the very tip, attempting to coax it free. His thoughts are going about a hundred and twenty over the speed limit, whirling through the cases they've taken, the people they've pissed off, anyone who might have the means or the inclination to pull something like this, if not Fisk.

He's pretty sure it's _not_ Fisk, is the thing. If it was Fisk, there'd be high-end video and audio, and they'd be in a warehouse that's properly intimidating, down by the docks, instead of someone's disused kitchen.

So that leaves – no one. No one they've crossed in court, anyway.

Matt makes a little noise as Foggy starts to pry the wire away, and Foggy's fingers stutter but keep going, slow and inexorable. He says, faux casual, "They anyone I've met?"

It's code, for the ears listening in. Shorthand, for: are these people you beat the shit out of in that dumb outfit of yours, Murdock, because I swear to God if we get out of here I'm killing you myself.

And Matt gasps, ragged and pained, as the wire comes away with a flap of skin. Then he says, "N-no one you've, uhm. We've." He jerks as Foggy starts to thread the wire underneath the cuffs, pushing it free – takes a breath and lets it out like he's bracing himself. "They know, Foggy."

It's not really a surprise, when it comes down to it. Foggy's already guessed.

But guessing isn't knowing, and knowing makes it feel like he's been sprayed down and shoved in a walk-in freezer, he goes cold so fast.

"Of course they do," Foggy finds himself saying, numbly.

He means to add more; he really does. He means to turn it into a joke somehow, about his idiot best friend and his idiot choices, and how he really, really misses the days when all the bad ideas were _Foggy's_ , and the worst of them involved tequila and inappropriate Halloween costumes.

But the wire snags on the cuffs, and something tears, and suddenly Foggy's fingers are slicked with fresh blood. Matt gives a little half-aborted yelp, and fuck it all – it's all Foggy can do to bite his lip and keep from crying, instead.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we are in completely new territory from what I'd had up on the meme now, I think, and will be from here on out.
> 
> Thanks so much to everyone who's sticking with me for this fic. o/

The world's narrower than it has been in a long time.

It holds the floor beneath him, chill and creased – ceramic tiles, three by four inches, crossed-laid with a design every five blocks. It holds the painful tingle of feeling returning to his hands and the ache of his own shoulders, not screaming agony anymore now that Foggy's yanked them back to where they should be. It holds the aftertaste of old Spaghettios, mostly eclipsed by the newer flavor of chicken noodle, thick and greasy – wheat flour, niacin, chicken fat, ferrous sulfate.

The soup's the cheap off-brand Matt's dad used to buy, and he hasn't had it since he was nine years old. It coats his tongue with globs of oil; it's packed with chemicals, and there's not actually any chicken in it. Matt's two gulps in, and he can't really bring himself to care. He's that hungry.

He's so focused on the here and now – on the heavy presence of Foggy's arm, warm and sturdy, holding him up so that he can drink the soup – that the first sign he hears of the man is the hallway is when the door clicks open.

Foggy goes ramrod-stiff; Matt can feel it all along his side, where he's leaning, needing the support to stay upright.

"Fuck," says Foggy, just a breath of a noise, and his heart rate starts to climb.

Matt winces like it's an accusation. His focus is shot to hell; he'd let himself pull the awareness in for just a little while, trying to narrow the world down to something less overwhelming.

He wishes, belatedly, that he'd had more sense. Thinks: there goes the element of surprise, and whose fault is that? The thought comes in a voice remarkably like Stick's, dry and disappointed.

Matt licks at his lips and tastes the chicken broth there – considers the can lid, serrated and sharp enough to cut, but his hands are still cuffed behind him. He thinks about the damage a well-placed kick can do: broken bones and the soft, yielding places that will drop a man. Both good options. Both _solid_ options. Only Matt can't even sit up under his own power.

Foggy takes the can away with fingers that shake. Matt can hear the minute _slosh_ of liquid against metal, feels the way the arm around his side tightens, protective.

"Can't you read?" Foggy says, trying for nonchalant, but his heart gives him away, pounding like a snare drum. "The sign says do not disturb."

Someone steps into the room, bringing the smell of cigars. It's fresher now, tobacco and vegetable gum, the bitter overlay of something burnt. While Foggy's been piecing Matt back together, their captor's been outside taking a smoke break.

Matt stretches his awareness out further, to the hall – takes in gun oil and sweaty palms, hears the gunman shuffle his feet with nerves.

"Mr. Nelson," says the cigar smoker. "I am going to make this very simple for you." There's a rustle of fabric as cigar guy squats to be closer to level with them. "We're not here for you. You're only the witness in all this."

"Witness to what?" Foggy asks – playing along, Matt thinks.

"To the greatest achievement organized crime in this city has seen since Mickey Spillane walked the streets of Hell's Kitchen." There's a pause; cigar guy's breathing hitches, just slightly, as though he can't wait to give the reveal.

Into the silence, Matt rasps, "Spillane ended up having to run to Queens with his tail between his legs."

The smoker makes an irritated sound, a click of his tongue. "Maybe he wouldn't have," the man snaps, "if he'd pulled off killing a devil."

It's not a surprise – not really. Matt gets three or four crazies a week trying to finish him off, these days.

The announcement's fishing for a reaction more than anything, so he stills his face and looks as bland and unconcerned as he's able, considering the stretch of swollen skin all across one cheekbone. But Foggy – he can hear Foggy hiss in a startled breath.

"So that's it?" Foggy asks, voice a little tattered at the edges. "Game, set, match?"

"Foggy," Matt says. "Don't."

"To the winner goes the spoils," cigar guy confirms. "But don't worry – you've got a little time left."

"A little," Foggy echoes, hollowly.

"We're going to pick him apart first," the smoker says, deliberate and condescending, like a bad teacher spelling out the solution for a struggling student. "Then you can take a good, long look at what we did and run to the police. And then the media."

There's a beat of stunned silence. Foggy swallows, a distinct click of his throat, to hear it spelled out so baldly. His heart sounds like it's trying to break out of his chest, and Matt concentrates on the sound to ignore the sudden dizziness that sweeps through him. He thinks, without meaning to, that he's probably going to be spending more time with those wires in the living room, before this is done.

"So –" Foggy starts, and has to try again, because his voice breaks. "So you – what? Kidnap some blind dude? Pass him off as the terror that stalks the night to try and buy some street cred?"

Cigar guy laughs softly and rocks back a little – shifts his weight to his heels, putting his center of balance too far back. Matt can hear the way he teeters, not quite steady, in the minute sound of rubber soles on ceramic tile. It would be a perfect shot: one foot out, catch him in the throat, send him sprawling backward.

Only that's the moment the footsteps from the hall bring the gunman into the room.

The new arrival just stands there in the doorway, but he's learned from his earlier mistake. This time, the gun is out and ready, in his hand – cradled against his palm, the mild abrasion of skin on textured metal. He's sweating, a sour tang that's more pronounced by the second: nervous from before, twitchy and aware.

It's the worst combination Matt can think of, with Foggy right there beside him, potentially taking any stray bullets.

Cigar guy's tone is annoyed now, words acerbic with sarcasm. "It's a little late for plausible deniability," he points out. "We've seen Mr. Murdock fight."

Foggy notices the gun. Matt can pinpoint the exact second it happens, because the arm around him tightens, and Foggy's heart rate ratchets up another notch. But he only huffs out a breath of air and says, "Sure. _You_ have. But you think the mob's gonna take your word for it?" He pauses an instant, to let that sink in, like he's addressing a jury.

Matt opens his mouth to interject – turns toward his best friend to ask what exactly he thinks he's doing – but Foggy taps Matt's arm, sharp and pointed.

He closes his mouth again without a word.

"I mean, no offense, but you're pretty much the poster child for white and nerdy. Your default coolness score's in the negative." Foggy clears his throat, a nervous reflex. Matt can feel it when he shrugs, warm skin under cheap cotton. "Trust me, I know all about these things."

The gunman takes a step forward: a careful footfall; the dim, heavy sulphur stench of gunpowder; the polyester and nylon whisper of his windbreaker. The gun isn't up all the way, but it's half-raised now, probably pointed in their general direction. Matt calculates angles and aim; his muscles tense of their own accord. He can shove Foggy over sideways before he springs forward – make him less of an accidental target.

As though Foggy can read Matt's thoughts, he leans in so that he's in the path of the gun.

"What are you _doing_?" Matt whispers, urgent, directly into Foggy's ear.

But at the same moment, cigar guy says, "You're saying we need proof," and Foggy taps Matt's arm again, more sharply this time.

"Only if you don't want to get laughed off the criminal mastermind playground." Foggy sounds – like he's about three seconds away from crying, actually. Matt knows his best friend well enough to pick out the tightness in the words. But over the top of that, he's layered a level of exasperation, like he can't believe he's having to explain something so obvious.

Cigar guy cocks his head, the brush of hair against a shirt collar – considering them, Matt thinks. "We have audio equipment. This conversation's on record."

But the smoker's heartbeat goes from assured and steady to a quicker pace, not alarmed but concerned – like an experienced poker player hiding a bad hand.

"You don't have anything," Matt tells him, half surprised by the revelation.

And Foggy says, "You've got a ten buck baby monitor. You think that thing actually _records_?"

There's silence. A whole uncomfortable five seconds of it. Into it, the gunman clears his throat. "You want me to shut them up?" he offers, voice scratchy with nerves. But his finger still isn't on the trigger, and the gun's not all the way up. They meant what they said, Matt thinks; they plan on spending more time with him before they end this.

"Gentlemen," says cigar guy, slow and thoughtful. "Excuse us for a moment." He rises from his crouch – not terribly fluid, hands on knees before he pushes up – and moves for the door, every step crisp and distinct on the tile.

He must gesture for the gunman. Matt misses it, not paying attention in the right place at the right time, but they both turn to go. An instant later, the door clicks closed and locks behind them.

The breath Matt lets out sounds suspiciously close to relief in his own ears, but what he says is, "You're not helping, Foggy."

"Except for the part where I bought us time." Foggy half-turns to face him, sets his free hand on Matt's shoulder. He sounds shakier, now that they don't have an audience – the words are too quick together, stumbling up against one another, sloppy with fear. "Or didn't you notice they're trying to kill you?"

"Trust me," Matt tells him. "I noticed." 

Foggy opens his mouth to add something else, but Matt gives his head a quick, sharp shake. In the hallway, cigar guy is speaking, the careful enunciation and calm demeanor of his voice stripped away – no longer a voice for show, but the one he uses among friends. "He's right, is all I'm saying," says that voice, no longer low and gravelly. "Come _on_ , man, if we kill this guy and no one knows who he is, we've just got some dead lawyer."

And the gunman, reluctant, answers: "I dunno, Aaron. Midterms are like next week. You said we'd be done in a day or two, tops."

They move off down the hall, footsteps growing fainter. Matt cants his head sideways, just slightly, and follows them by sound to the living room. Someone's back in the pleather chair, breathing soft and even with sleep. Cut wires still dangle from a beam over the ceiling, faint motion in a breeze from an open window. Someone's pacing, down and up one wall – the soles are cork, and the steps creak with leather: strapped sandals.

The pacing stops, and a woman's voice says, "Well?"

Fabric rustles; the sleep-breathing falters, rises to a normal tempo, and there's a creak of pleather. A high voice says, "Aw, man. I miss round two?"

"Not exactly." Cigar guy – Aaron – sounds almost regretful. "We might have a problem."

Round two, Matt thinks, and can't quite stop the little tremor that runs through him. He swallows, hard, and wills his breathing to stay steady. To Foggy he says, "You gave them something to think about, anyway."

There's a pause before Foggy answers, then a shaky exhale. "See? Buying time." Foggy shifts beside him, reaches an arm behind Matt's back; fingertips probe at the tattered flesh of his wrists. "So what's the plan?"

Metal slides together and tugs: a _clink_ , and a sudden sharp pain as Foggy tries to force the cuffs open again. Matt grinds his teeth together to keep from making a sound, and when the pain's passed, this second attempt no more successful than the first, he says, "I'll take them out."

"Matt," Foggy says. It's amazing how much he can pack into a single syllable, somehow flat and disapproving and afraid all at once. "You can't even sit up by yourself."

The living room's filled with raised voices. They're arguing exams and logistics and funding for a new video camera. One of the women is offering to find Matt's home address, and Matt feels a sudden wave of nausea sweep through him at the thought of them in his apartment, going through his things. Opening up the locked closet and finding the box with his body armor inside.

"As long as I get the one with the gun first, I've got a shot," Matt insists. "He's the only one with a weapon, I think."

"You're cuffed," Foggy tells him. "And you _can't sit up by yourself_." He gives the handcuffs one final shake, frustrated, before giving up on them. "If I was a dick, I'd scoot over and let you fall to prove my point."

In the other room, the topic's shifted. Now they're talking about the wires on the ceiling, and hammers and nails, and ice cubes. Matt grits his teeth together to keep from reacting, but he must not succeed, not completely, because Foggy says, "What? What is it?"

"Nothing," Matt tells him, "It's nothing. They're just –"

Making plans, he wants to say, but the words stick in his throat. They've reached a decision; there are footsteps in the hall again, _creak_ , _creak_ , leather and cork, and the smell of a woman's perfume, freesia and honey.

"Just what?" That's a definite spike of alarm in Foggy's voice, something rough and bright underneath the near-panic.

"Coming back," Matt says, but he really doesn't need to. The key in the lock announces it better than words.


End file.
